With Ray Lewis headed for greener pastures in retirement, the Baltimore Ravens now look to Joe Flacco to lead them forward.
Talk about two totally different cats.
Lewis is Saturday night; Flacco -- labeled "dull" by his own father -- is Sunday morning.
Nestled inside Friday's engaging ESPN.com feature, Flacco acknowledged he'll lead differently than the retired linebacker. For starters, the quarterback won't make any attempts at Lewis' rapturous pregame pep sessions.
"That's not me," said Flacco, who tossed some lighthearted heat at Lewis.
"I love Ray, and I love how he always spoke from the heart, but if you listened to those speeches, a lot of them didn't even make sense," Flacco said. "He meant everything he was saying, but I didn't know what he was talking about 90 percent of the time."
It's funny, and it's true. Plenty of players drew inspiration from Lewis -- and still do -- but the man's soliloquies often wound listeners down some strange alleyways.
Flacco will talk much less, but he won't pretend to be someone he's not.
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